What's New

In lieu of the September 26th Grand Boulevard Initiative Task Force Meeting GBI staff will be hosting a tour of exemplary development projects along El Camino Real in San Mateo County. The event will include guided walking tours of downtown Redwood City and Bay Meadows in San Mateo. SamTrans will be providing transportation to and from the tour sites as well as light refreshments before the event.

For more information or if you are interested in attending the event, please visit the event registration page here. Seating is limited!

The Grand Boulevard Initiative received a Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Planning grant to develop conceptual design drawings for multimodal streetscape improvements on two segments of El Camino Real in Palo Alto (Stanford Ave to Lambert Ave) and Redwood City (Maple Street to Charter Street). Based on high bicycle and pedestrian collision rates, these segments were chosen as one of two case studies to develop design guidance that could be adapted for other jurisdictions along the El Camino corridor. In collaboration with the two jurisdictions, the study will identify the challenges, needs, and opportunities for all modes of transportation and develop improvements to make the areas more livable for residents.

Project Status

The Creating Safe and Healthy Corridor Communities study will be completed in February 2019. The process will include data collection and existing conditions review, gathering public input on potential improvement alternatives, refining the draft concepts based on feedback from the project partners and the public, gathering public feedback on the revised concepts and presenting the final alternatives to City Council.

City of Palo Alto – Grand Boulevard Palo Alto

The project team held three outreach “pop-ups” in mid-January as well as administered an online interactive mapping survey. The purpose of the pop-up events and interactive mapping survey was to gather community input and ideas that can be used to develop draft conceptual streetscape designs. The most recent outreach event was held on June 3rd and a survey is open for public feedback.

For more information on the case study segment in Palo Alto visit the City’s website here.

City of Redwood City – Bike & Ped Safety Improvement Study

Outreach events for Redwood City included a combination of “pop-ups” and workshop/open houses. Events were held on March 17, 28, and April 13. Similar to Palo Alto, the data collected during outreach will be used to develop draft conceptual streetscape designs for the case study segment in Redwood City. These conceptual streetscape designs will be presented to Redwood City's Complete Streets Advisory Committee (CSAC) in July.

For more information on the case study segment in Redwood City visit the City’s website here.

The Grand Boulevard Initiative Partner Sessions were a series of interactive meetings to engage local representatives and discuss emerging opportunities to make El Camino Real a more urban, pedestrian-friendly, transit-oriented corridor for residents to live, work, shop and play. Read more about the sessions and view the session documents here.

Six Peninsula cities recently received top honors for development projects and plans in the El Camino Real corridor that exemplifies the Grand Boulevard Initiative (GBI) Guiding Principles. This year, two awards were granted – a 2016 Grand Boulevard Initiative Award and 10-Year Legacy Award, which commemorates a previously awarded project as an exemplary legacy project of the 10 years of the Grand Boulevard Initiative.

At an awards ceremony and special luncheon held last week sponsored by San Mateo County Economic Development Association (SAMCEDA) and Dostart Development Company, LLC, GBI’s Task Force selected the following cities for the 2016 Grand Boulevard Initiative Award:

A total of 15 projects were nominated for the 2016 Grand Boulevard Initiative Awards and 17 projects nominated for the 10-Year Legacy Awards, for a total of 32 projects nominated and scored. Members scored each of the nominated projects based upon how well each project met the 10 Grand Boulevard Guiding Principles.

The Grand Boulevard Initiative received a state grant of nearly $350,000 to design improvements on El Camino Real in Redwood City and Palo Alto to improve safety and accessibility for all roadway users. The grant, awarded by Caltrans as part of its Sustainable Transportation Planning program, will improve portions of El Camino Real near the downtown areas of Redwood City and Palo Alto. Combined with a local funding contribution, the total improvement investments will be $394,300.

The improvements will include traffic calming measures, upgrades to pedestrian facilities, considerations for bicycles, and enhanced streetscape designs to make the area more livable for residents. The areas in Redwood City and Palo Alto were chosen based on their high opportunity to improve bicycle and pedestrian safety and access on El Camino Real. With the improvements, the Grand Boulevard Initiative hopes to make the areas more socially and economically connected with their surrounding communities.

Conceptual design for the improvement projects will begin in late 2016.

Grand Boulevard Initiative invites its member agencies to submit nominations for the fourth round of Grand Boulevard Awards for projects and plans that embody the 10 Guiding Principles and Grand Boulevard Initiative Vision of creating people friendly places from Daly City to San Jose.

Eligible projects must be located within a half-mile of El Camino Real/Mission St/The Alameda (State Route 82) in San Mateo or Santa Clara Counties between northern Daly City and San Jose at Diridon Station.

There are three different Award categories. A project or plan will be evaluated based on its level of compliance with the 10 Guiding Principles.